Lona groped for an understanding of all this. “Can you read minds, David?”
“No.”
“Can Chalk?”
“No. Not read. It doesn’t come in words. It comes in feelings. He reads feelings. I can tell. And he likes unhappy feelings. He wants us to be unhappy together, because that would make him happy.”
Perplexed, Lona leaned toward Melangio and said, “Do you like women, David?”
“I like my mother. I sometimes like my sister. Even though they hurt me a lot when I was young.”
“Have you ever wanted to get married?”
“Oh, no! Married is for grown-ups!”
“And how old are you?”
“Forty years, eight months, three weeks, two days. I don’t know how many hours. They won’t tell me what time I was born.”
“You poor bastard.”
“You’re sorry for me because they won’t tell me what time I was born.”
“I’m sorry for you,” she said. “Period. But I can’t do anything for you, David. I’ve used up all my niceness. Now people have to start being nice to me.”
“I’m nice to you.”
“Yes, you are. You’re very nice.” Impulsively she took his hand in hers. His skin was smooth and cool. Not as smooth as Burris’s, though, nor as cool. Melangio shivered at the contact, but allowed her to squeeze the hand. After a moment she let go and went to the wall and ran her hands over the side of the room until the door opened. She stepped through and saw Nikolaides and d’Amore murmuring to each other.
“Chalk wants to see you now,” d’Amore said. “Did you enjoy your little visit with David?”
“He’s charming. Where’s Chalk?”
Chalk was in his throne-room, perched on high. Lona clambered up the crystal rungs. As she approached the fat man, she felt old timidnesses returning. She had learned how to cope with people lately, but coping with Chalk might be beyond her grasp.
He rocked in his huge chair. His broad face creased in what she took to be a smile.
“So nice to see you again. Did you enjoy your travels?”
“Very interesting. And now, my babies—”
“Please, Lona, don’t rush. Have you met David?”
“Yes.”
“So pitiful. So much in need of help. What do you think of his gift?”
“We had a deal,” Lona said. “I took care of Minner, you got me some of my babies. I don’t want to talk about Melangio.”
“You broke up with Burris sooner than I had expected,” said Chalk. “I haven’t completed all the arrangements concerning your children.”
“You’re going to get them for me?”
“In a short while. But not quite yet. This is a difficult negotiation, even for me. Lona, will you oblige me while you’re waiting for the children? Help David, the way you helped Burris. Bring some light into his life. I’d like to see the two of you together. A warm, maternal person like you—”
“This is a trick, isn’t it?” she said suddenly. “You’ll play with me forever! One zombi after another for me to cuddle! Burris, Melangio, and then who knows what next? No. No. We made a deal. I want my babies. I want my babies.”
Sonic dampers were whirring to cut down the impact of her shouts. Chalk looked startled. Somehow he appeared both pleased and angered at once by this show of spirit. His body seemed to puff and expand until he weighed a million pounds.
“You cheated me,” she said, quieter now. “You never meant to give them back to me!”
She leaped. She would scrape gobbets of flesh from the fat face.
From the ceiling, instantly, descended a fine mesh of golden threads. Lona hit it, rebounded, surged forward again. She could not reach Chalk. He was shielded.
Nikolaides, d’Amore. They seized her arms. She lashed out with her weighted shoes.
“She’s overwrought,” said Chalk. “She needs calming.”
Something stung her left thigh. She sagged and was still.
TWENTY-EIGHT: CRY, WHAT SHALL I CRY?
He was growing weary of Titan. He had taken to the icy moon as to a drug after Lona’s departure. But now he was numb. Nothing Aoudad could say or do … or get for him … would keep him here any longer.
Elise lay naked beside him. High overhead, the Frozen Waterfall hung in motionless cascade. They had rented their own power-sled and had come out by themselves, to park at the glacier’s mouth and make love by the glimmer of Saturnlight on frozen ammonia.
“Are you sorry I came here to you, Minner?” she asked.
“Yes.” He could be blunt with her.
“Still miss her? You didn’t need her.”
“I hurt her. Needlessly.”
“And what did she do to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about her with you.” He sat up and put his hands on the controls of the sled. Elise sat up, too, pressing her flesh against him. In this strange light she looked whiter than ever. Did she have blood in that plump body? She was white as death. He started the sled, and it crawled slowly along the edge of the glacier, heading away from the dome. Pools of methane lay here and there. Burris said, “Would you object if I opened the roof of the sled, Elise?”
“We’d die.” She didn’t sound worried.
“You’d die. I’m not sure I would. How do I know this body can’t breathe methane?”
“It isn’t likely.” She stretched, voluptuously, languidly. “Where are you going?”
“Sight-seeing.”
“It might not be safe here. You might break through the ice.”
“Then we’d die. It would be restful, Elise.”
The sled hit a crunching tongue of new ice. It bounced slightly, and so did Elise. Idly Burris watched the quiver ripple its way all through her abundant flesh. She had been with him a week now. Aoudad had produced her. There was much to be said for her voluptuousness, little for her soul. Burris wondered if poor Prolisse had known what sort of wife he had taken.
She touched his skin. She was always touching him, as if reveling in the wrongness of his texture. “Love me again,” she said.
“Not now. Elise, what do you desire in me?”
“All of you.”
“There’s a universe full of men who can keep you happy in bed. What in particular do I have for you?”
“The Manipool changes.”
“You love me for the way I look?”
“I love you because you’re unusual.”
“What about blind men? One-eyed men? Hunchbacks? Men with no noses?”
“There aren’t any. Everyone gets a prosthetic now. Everyone’s perfect.”
“Except me.”
“Yes. Except you.” Her nails dug into his skin. “I can’t scratch you. I can’t make you sweat. I can’t even look at you without feeling a little queasy. That’s what I desire in you.”
“Queasiness?”
“You’re being silly.”
“You’re a masochist, Elise. You want to grovel. You pick the weirdest thing in the system and throw yourself at him and call it love, but it isn’t love, it isn’t even sex, it’s just self-torture. Right?”
She looked at him queerly.
“You like to be hurt,” he said. He put his hand over one of her breasts, spreading the fingers wide to encompass all the soft, warm bulk of it. Then he closed his hand. Elise winced. Her delicate nostrils flared and her eyes began to tear. But she said nothing as he squeezed. Her respiration grew more intense; it seemed to him that he could feel the thunder of her heart. She would absorb any quantity of this pain without a whimper, even if he tore the white globe of flesh from her body entirely. When he released her, there were six white imprints against the whiteness of her flesh. In a moment they began to turn red. She looked like a tigress about to spring. Above them, the Frozen Waterfall rushed downward in eternal stillness. Would it begin to flow? Would Saturn drop from the heavens and brush Titan with his whirling rings?